Hennebry's eye for detail on Draft Plan

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It was as if councillor Jane Hennebry was writing a nitpicker's guide to annual plans and she wanted all of her colleagues to read it.

She spent most of this week's Waikato Regional Council meeting picking over the details of the text for the 2014-15 Draft Annual Plan.

"Am I the only person that reads these?" she asked.

"In detail, yes," replied fellow councillor Lois Livingstone.

"I read this as a lay person and I wonder how we understand this," Hennebry said.

She wondered what phrases in the 60-page document, like agricultural extension, meant and was told by staff that it was working with farmers.

"Everybody will get the summary version which is in plain language we can all understand," councillor Hugh Vercoe said.

The Draft Annual Plan will be adopted on March 13 before going out to a month's consultation on March 16.

Waikato Regional Council is proposing a rates increase of 0.3 per cent with a key spend including an extra $4.5 million put into the council's Healthy Rivers: Plan for Change project over the next two financial years.

Hennebry said the Rates Control Team was delighted with the collaboration of the whole council resulting in the record low increase.

"Unheard of in recent years," she said, crediting teamwork for the success.